The Super Bowl is happening! The game is on NBC, complete with the Eagles and Patriots playing football on the network’s airwaves.

NFL Network — known as THE official network of the National Football League — has on a scoreboard and audio of the game. That’s it.

With David Johnson due to return from injury for Arizona, Peterson could be released this offseason, finding himself in the same spot as last year.

The Falcons jumped out to a 28-3 lead in Super Bowl LI. Then New England scored 25 unanswered points to tie things up and send the game to overtime for the first time in Super Bowl history. James White punched in a two-yard touchdown to get the win and spawn a lifetime of 28-3 jokes at the Falcons’ expense.

The longtime Giants quarterback has more title game victories as a starter than anyone in franchise history, derailing the team of the 2000s in the process. Four years of preparation failed to develop the kind of protection the Patriots needed to keep Brady comfortable in the pocket, as the league’s No. 1 and No. 3 ranked offenses were shut down by Giants’ coach Tom Coughlin’s indomitable pass rush.

With the trade deadline having passed in standard leagues, what is the top piece of advice you have for fantasy managers as we enter the stretch run of the season?

Kyle Soppe: The importance of staying active on the waiver wire cannot be overstated, though not in the same crucial way as in the first part of the season. Up until the All-Star Break, your primary mission is to build the best roster possible. While not easy, it’s a reasonably simple concept. However, as we approach the finish line, you are no longer aiming to build the most talented roster but, rather, the one that will perform the best over a short period of time.

While that may sound like splitting hairs, unwise loyalty to a slightly “better” player can doom you. For example, if and when the Rockets lock up a top-two seed in the West, might they curtail the minutes of a player like Eric Gordon? After all, last season was the first time since his rookie campaign that he appeared in at least 65 regular season games. Conversely, should the Pelicans continue to battle for a playoff spot while Darius Miller’s playing time increases, doesn’t it stand to reason that his best production could come when you need it most?

All eyes are on Minneapolis this week heading into Super Bowl 52. On Sunday, the New England Patriots take on the Philadelphia Eagles in a rematch of Super Bowl 39. There are plenty of options for viewers to catch the game live when things kick off at 6:30 p.m. ET on NBC. Live streams can be found at NBC Sports, Yahoo! Sports (iOS | Android), and FuboTV.

Still looking for their first Super Bowl title, the Eagles have embraced their underdog identity, and the defense should be a good matchup against Brady. But if they want to lift the Lombardi Trophy, they need Foles to be at his absolute best. Even the smallest mistake could change the game. There’s no margin for error when playing Brady and Belichick, so Doug Pederson and Co. will need a perfect game plan on Sunday.

This year’s game will pit the New England Patriots’ growing dynasty — in search of its sixth NFL championship — against a Philadelphia Eagles team that has never won a Super Bowl. Philadelphia will head into Sunday’s game the same way it has throughout the playoffs — as a significant underdog. New England opened as a 6-point betting favorite to claim another Lombardi Trophy.

That’s because MVP candidate Carson Wentz, the second-year quarterback whose emergence helped the Eagles recognize their true potential, won’t be on the field. The North Dakota State product tore his ACL in Week 14, handing the reins of one of the league’s deepest offenses over to Nick Foles. The former Pro Bowler has had an up-and-down run as the team’s replacement, but he’s peaking at the right time for Philadelphia to make a run — he threw for 352 yards and three touchdowns in the team’s NFC Championship win over the Vikings.

Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda was rushed to a Bay Area hospital on Monday night, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

A San Francisco Giants spokeswoman who confirmed Cepeda’s hospitalization to the Chronicle said she had no further information on his condition or the nature of his illness, the newspaper reported.

Cepeda, 80, was an 11-time All-Star first baseman who played 17 seasons for six MLB teams, including the Giants, St. Louis Cardinals and Atlanta Braves.

As for the Player Rater, Ohtani will become the first player to receive credit for his contributions both as hitter and pitcher. He’ll receive the traditional Player Rater valuation for his pitching statistics — the Rater normalizes stats against what you could reasonably expect from a replacement level player in your league — but because any hitting contributions he provides you would be considered bonus contributions, each of those numbers would be rewarded incrementally.

But now 2017-18 looks like a transition year more than anything, with the bright spots coming from young players such as Nick Schmaltz, Alex DeBrincat, and Vinnie Hinostroza. Here’s a look at some of the factors that have contributed to the Blackhawks’ downfall.

There’s been a lot of debate about the value of Crawford over the years, but the past few months should’ve laid to rest any question about his importance to the Blackhawks. The goaltender has been their best player for the past several seasons, papering over the team’s decline across the rest of its roster.

The same goes for earlier this season, when the Hawks were already displaying many of their flaws, but Crawford was good enough to keep the team in the playoff mix. There’s a real chance that he would’ve been a contender to win the Vezina Trophy had he stayed healthy.

So here’s your answer to the winter’s most pressing question: In ESPN leagues, Ohtani will serve as one player — just as he will be for his Angels — with the ability to be started as either a hitter or pitcher.

In the big picture, plan on Arizona batters losing hits and homers, piggybacked by a drop in runs and RBIs. The change won’t be felt equally but no one is immune; they’ll all suffer. Even Chuck Norris’ exit velocity would drop with the humidor. The silver lining could be an increase in steals, as lower scoring is usually a harbinger for increased running. Even in a still run-friendly Coors Field, pilfers increased after the installation of the humidor.

Given ERA is highly variable, Greinke lines up as a top-15 starter to as high as sixth, depending how you rank the highly skilled but injury risk options like Noah Syndergaard and Stephen Strasburg.

Surprised to be traded, Steven Souza Jr. heads to Arizona for what promises to be a key role on a Diamondbacks team that expects to be good.

The 28-year-old outfielder knew the Tampa Bay Rays were making some big changes but felt assured by management that he still figured in their plans.

As much as people were flying off the shelf, it seemed like I was not going to be one of those people, Souza said Wednesday in a conference call from the airport before boarding a plane to Arizona. It definitely caught me off-guard a little bit. I was definitely preparing for the role that I had there.

It was also odd that he was being celebrated for this moment of redemption when just a year ago he was facing a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Lena Zawaideh, the former drummer of his band. The suit was settled last summer and White dismissed it in a celebration interview as gossip. Then another reporter who also wanted to ask about the case was passed over and none of the women in the press seats was called on to question him:

After that, the behavior was mentioned begrudgingly, because it is a moment of celebration. But also, what has to be sold by the Olympics and then the media that covers it isn’t Shaun White the actual person, but Shaun White the Olympian. The American gold medal winner.

Sure, it’s still technically the offseason, but as of last week, spring training is underway. Traditionally, that means one thing: It’s time to hope. It’s time for fans of the best teams to hope for a championship. And it’s time for fans of the worst teams to hope for a surprise — a Cinderella run toward relevance. The regular season can slam shut doors of possibility, but right now, all doors remain open.

Hope is different everywhere, and it’s partly informed and moderated by preseason projections. Teams and fans aren’t going into spring training blind. Once rosters get more or less set, different analytical services use prior data to project what’s likely to happen. Here are the current projected 2018 standings at FanGraphs. There will be shifts between now and Opening Day, but they probably won’t be dramatic. Right there, you can get an informed idea of which teams look solid and which teams look weak.

From the fan perspective, maybe mathematical projections rob us of the fun of the unknowable. It’s clear the White Sox are rebuilding, but the projections also make it clear how far they still have to go. Without the math, it might be easier to dream. But allow me to let you in on a little secret: Projections aren’t destiny. Projections don’t work against hope. They just make clearer what’s being hoped for.

No, there is no word on whether Janet Jackson will make an appearance. The incident in Houston 14 years ago has been referenced often since Timberlake was announced as the halftime performer, but don’t expect history to repeat itself in Minneapolis.

P!nk’s performance of the national anthem in Minneapolis will be her first time appearing on the Super Bowl stage.

In addition, on behalf of the National Association of the Deaf (NAD), actor and director Alexandria Wailes will perform in American sign language both the national anthem and “America The Beautiful.”

The opening song in this halftime performance features young girls in cheerleading costumes singing:

“You’ve got to be a football hero, to get along with the beautiful girls. You’ve got to be a touchdown getter you bet, if you want to get, a cutie to pet.”

The 1995 Super Bowl halftime show, produced by Disney, was meant to help build a buzz around the new Indiana Jones Adventure ride at Disneyland. With the random addition of Patti LaBelle and Tony Bennett, it ended up being one of the most strange, confusing and hilarious halftime performances of all time.

We can thank this halftime show for pushing the NFL to become more of a halftime concert than a Broadway production. Michael Jackson performed his halftime show the following year.

That he disrobed Janet Jackson, violently yanking at her leather jacket to expose one of her breasts during 2004’s halftime, clearly doesn’t strike the NFL as a deterrent from an encore engagement. More likely, it seems a marketing ploy to create a buzz then to stick with this halftime show in anticipation of, well, you never know.

The NFL’s high-bar is so low that after Seattle’s Doug Baldwin scored in the 2015 Super Bowl, his sense of “spontaneous fun” was to use the football to mime an end-zone defecation. He remained in the game.

The NFL will now pay Goodell in excess of $40 million per year to keep on keeping on, as if big-business folks — team owners — are blissfully unaware that there has never been a graph with a growth line that points straight up.

As if the NFL isn’t now bleeding from the abandonment of clear-headed folks who can no longer suffer what the NFL has become, from foresight-barren replay rules, to mindlessly excessive, remorseless brutality that incites ritual group joy among teammates — mostly full scholarship college men who behave, on and off the clock, like incorrigible, self-entitled, immodest, undignified adolescents, though frequently charged as adults.

Rodgers, out with shoulder surgery since Oct. 15, was back but didn’t play because the Packers were eliminated. Luck, injured, hasn’t played all season for the now-3-12 Colts.

The 49ers were dreadful on defense in 2016 and have no answer at safety opposite former LSU product Eric Reid. New GM John Lynch might see a little of himself in Adams, who will infuse this defense with some life and energy and become an immediate leader on that side of the ball. Not to mention, he will aid both the league’s worst pass defense and the 14th-ranked run defense from his safety position.

“Tarik Cohen just returned a punt 132 yards for a touchdown!” Siciliano proclaims on the air. On his next check of Twitter, a viewer tells him he was close, that Cohen had run 127 yards, prompting Siciliano to ask Thibault if any advanced metrics had been released for the play. When CBS finally shows the comet-trail replay, Siciliano shouts, “C.mon, get to 132, get to 132!” The yardage counter stops at 127.

It turns out that the league with the most native-born players is also the league with the most protests. Maybe — just maybe — the NFL is a hub of political and social expression not because it is full of players who don’t love or care about the country but because it is full of players who do.

And maybe — just maybe — hockey players have abstained from demonstrations (save for J.T. Brown of the Tampa Bay Lightning) not because they are more patriotic than their counterparts on the gridiron but because they are somewhat detached from the politics of a country they did not grow up in and, in many cases, they live in on a part-time basis or not at all. (Seven of the NHL’s 31 teams are based in Canada.)

Jones: Inside linebacker’s a definite need. They could use another guy with range and playmaking ability both against the run and pass rush. But I don’t know that there’s really a position on defense they shouldn’t consider. I’d even take a long look at Southern California cornerback Adoree’ Jackson if he’s there and the others are not. Some believe he’s the best cornerback in the draft. He’s a little smaller at 5 feet 10, 186 pounds, but he’d do well covering slot receivers, and nickelback certainly was an area where Washington struggled to find consistency last year.

A redshirt-junior, Lee is a 6-4 pocket-passer who transferred to Nebraska after starting his career at Tulane. Arriving to the Senior Bowl to replace Mason Rudolph, Lee has the body type, arm talent, and college flash to impress in the practice setting.

Still, Lee has struggled to consistently finish in the midfield as a passer, too often throwing off balance and struggling to adjust off his first read. His inconsistency in one offense seems to have hurt him, but I wouldn’t be surprised if NFL teams consider his potential as a developmental Day 3 prospect — based on his Senior Bowl play.

A three-year starter at Richmond, Lauletta was a lightly recruiting high school quarterback who, after playing some as a freshman, earned his starting role as a redshirt-sophomore. Despite four different offensive coordinators during his time in college, Lauletta has proven adaptable to multiple systems and has still shown next-level mental aptitude and processing. As a 6-2 passer, Lauletta has a well-built frame to stand tall and deliver throws with poise and adequate vision.

After shutting out New Orleans in the first half of last week’s Minneapolis Miracle classic, the Vikings finished the season allowing 62 points over their final six quarters — after allowing just 17 points over their previous 14 periods of play. Sunday’s 38 points, 456 total yards and 346 passing yards allowed all marked season-highs for a Vikings defense that seemed magical just a fortnight ago.

While Malcolm Jenkins and the Eagles put on a clinic in open-field tackling, the Vikings were a seething mess in pass protection. After allowing a third-down conversion rate of only 25.2 percent this season — tops in the NFL and the lowest third-down conversion rate allowed since at least 1991 — the Vikings gave way as Minnesota converted an outrageous 10-of-14 third-down snaps.

It has been 18 years since Brady first arrived in New England, and there is an end of days feel to this season. Brady is 40, and the Patriots are going to have to replace two coordinators and perhaps more of their staff in the coming weeks. They have churned through players and coaches before — Lawyer Milloy, Richard Seymour, Romeo Crennel, Charlie Weis — and survived, but in 2016, when the Patriots and Brady overcame his four-game suspension, there was a hard edge of vengeance about the season. On Sunday, Brady was more relaxed and reflective, unburdened by controversy and understandably relieved. His physical and mental toughness is unquestioned, but as much as Brady is currently winning the battle against time, it eventually comes for all athletes.

Among the vast records maintained by Sports Reference are the birthplaces of virtually every athlete ever to play in the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association (and, pre-merger, the American Basketball Association). A Fix review of the data shows that the overwhelming majority, 84.5 percent, of hockey players who have appeared in NHL games were foreign-born. Additionally, 1 in 9 MLB players was foreign-born, and the rate in pro basketball is 1 in 10.

And while there are rumblings that the reason Miami soured on him involve his personality, as a player I really like him: he’s a big man who can cut and run over people. This will wind up a strong move for his fantasy value.

Last month, the New York Times’ Upshot blog found that the NFL has become one of the most divisive brands in the United States as it seeks common ground between a player population that is predominantly black and a fan base that is mostly white. In addition to the league’s other negative headlines, TV ratings have dropped and were not helped by lackluster games on Thanksgiving Day.

It was promptly skewered on social media, including by the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning.

That trend continued with this year’s first hire, as the Jacksonville Jaguars promoted interim coach and former offensive assistant Doug Marrone.

Joseph spent this season as Gase’s defensive coordinator in Miami. The Dolphins ranked only 29th in the NFL in total defense. And Joseph’s defense did not fare particularly well in Sunday’s 30-12 defeat at Pittsburgh in the opening round of the AFC playoffs.

But Joseph’s reputation as a rising star in the coaching ranks went mostly unaffected. Broncos front office chief John Elway seemed to zero in on Joseph and Shanahan after also interviewing Kansas City’s special teams coordinator, Dave Toub. When Joseph did not leave for a planned interview with the Chargers, it was clear that Elway had settled on his man.

Even though CTE can only be diagnosed after death, Baez, the attorney, said Thursday he wished Hernandez had undergone more extensive testing while still alive.

“I will say for lawyers representing athletes of contact sports, that this is something that you should definitely consider having your clients take some of the presumptive tests that are available,” he said. “It is something that we considered as a team, but did not pursue simply because his defense was one of actual innocence and not one of mitigation. It’s something I deeply regret.”

As expected, Isaiah Thomas had his best game in a Cavaliers uniform on Thursday, scoring 21 points with 4 assists, 3 rebounds, 3 3-pointers and 2 steals in 30 minutes of action. Derrick Rose also got back on the court for the first time since early November, scoring 9 points with 3 rebounds, 1 assist and 1 blocked shot in 13 minutes off the bench.

The entire perimeter unit of the Lakers are on the injury report for Friday. Lonzo Ball (knee) and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (Achilles) are both listed as out, and Brandon Ingram (ankle) and Kyle Kuzma (finger) are listed as questionable. Players like Josh Hart, Jordan Clarkson or Tyler Ennis could be in for bigger roles. If either/both of the forwards sit, players like Larry Nance Jr. or Julius Randle could also see more action than usual.

Brandon LaFell, WR, Bengals: He’s coming off his best game of the season, and while the consensus is to temper expectations when facing the Broncos’ defense, it’s time to accept that Denver is not playing that great defensively. The Broncos have lost five straight (including at home vs. the Giants) and have surrendered at least 21 points in all of those contests. If you’re in a jam, LaFell is not a great option, but he’s starting for a decent enough offense and should be given consideration.

It was another distressing Sunday in an NFL season whose disturbance and cruelty has managed consistently to overshadow thrills and fun. The big headline was the feared loss of Carson Wentz to a torn anterior cruciate ligament for the remainder of the season. The lasting, unshakable image was Tom Savage lying prone, his hands vibrating in an involuntary fashion, before somehow reentering the game minutes later. Elsewhere, a Seattle Seahawks player attempted to climb into the stands in Jacksonville to fight a fan who had thrown a drink at him.

Underneath another serving of misery, hope for a more enjoyable future pulsed. While injuries and controversies have dominated the season, the NFL still may be partially redeemed by a showcase hinted at Sunday. The rain clouds over the season may be able to ruin anything, but right now the NFC playoffs appear to be as can’t-miss as can’t-miss could be. Barring a letdown, they are going to be great.